Building a Foundation
The Future of Buckeye

iy Bob Bushner

Founded in 1888 and incorporated eight decades ago as a 440-acre town, Buckeye has surged into the 21st century with a 597-square-mile planning area-more than 370 square miles are now in town limits. The population figures reflect Buckeye's tremendous growth. In the 2000 Census, 8,497 residents were counted; by 2006, the population had increased by 273 percent to 31,745 residents. That growth prompted Forbes Magazine to rank Buckeye as the second fastest-growing suburb in the nation in 2007.

Buckeye town clerk Linda Garrison, who has been employed with the town for more than two decades, says that for much of that time, Buckeye was a small agricultural community that went unnoticed in the much larger venue of Maricopa County. "Not anymore," Garrison says. Despite the recent downturn in the housing market, the number of Buckeye residents has now swelled to more than 40,000. While most communities have been experiencing decreases in issuing single-family residential building permits, Buckeye's Community Development Department issued 2,891 such permits in 2007.

The timing has been right for Buckeye officials. Buoyed by revenues from the building spurt, they ramped up the hiring of quality professionals in all town departments, gathering a group of directors who have provided sound leadership that has helped produce significant accomplishments-Buckeye has been planning for its growth for years.

Services to Meet Future Growth

In just the past two years, five new fire stations have been opened in the new neighborhoods sprouting up. Intensive community action efforts and a state and nationally acclaimed Faith Builders organization have helped lower the crime rate by 16 percent as the growth increased by 30 percent.

All Valley residents realize that water, transportation and open space retention are some of the most important issues to ensure the sustainability of their communities. Buckeye has taken the lead in the substantial areas early on, joining in some unique private-public partnerships to set the foundation for that sustainability.

The town joined with developers and the Arizona Department of Water Resources-the first time such a partnership had been formed-to produce the Lower Hassayampa Sub-Basin Hydrologic Study. The study provides a valuable management tool the town can use to assure a water supply for the hundreds of thousands of new residents expected to live here in the next several decades.

Town officials and representatives of Global Water Co. agreed to share management of the water supply in the region west of the White Tank Mountains to guarantee a sustainable water supply. Buckeye's public works department planned out all wastewater services needs throughout the town's entire planning area, siting and sizing 12 future waste water treatment facilities in the region and the future of the six plants in operation today. It was the first time a municipality in Maricopa County studied and planned such comprehensive details in accordance with the nation's Clean Water Act.

Anyone who has driven along Interstate 10 in the west Valley realizes the impact growth has had on that section of interstate. Buckeye officials joined with several other west Valley communities in successfully urging the state Department of Transportation to significantly move up the timing for construction of additional I-10 lanes-work that has now begun, a decade earlier than initially planned. Town officials joined with representatives of the Maricopa Association of Governments in the Hassayampa Framework Study that laid out a grid of future transportation corridors in the region. That plan calls for a series of parkways, freeways and connector roads throughout the planning area.

The additional road will be needed to service the Buckeye area, which is asymmetrical with its widest point east to west at 17.5 miles and its longest point north to south at 47 miles. More than 22 master planned communities have been approved by town officials and a few are already in their second or third phases of construction.

From Sundance south of I-10 to Verrado north of the interstate to Sun City Festival at the northern foothills of the White Tank Mountains, Buckeye is starting to feel the growth. And although 900 homes have already been built in the Tartesso community along the Sun Valley Parkway west of the White Tanks, the major growth due to housing development in the area won't be felt for some years.

Community and Lifestyle

In just six of the master-planned communities in that region, more than 250,000 dwelling units are planned, as well as 71 elementary schools, 13 high schools and more than 4,500 acres of commercial, retail and employment development. Some of Buckeye's proposed retail has already gone vertical. There is already a 648,000 square foot retail power center at I-10 at Watson Road and another totaling almost 718,000 square feet underway a mile east at Verrado Way. In addition, the Maricopa Community College District has announced a proposed campus site at Southern Avenue and Turner Road.

As the residential and work aspects of life in Buckeye are beginning to surface, so too is the "play" aspect. Buckeye received a $560,000 grant from the state to begin the planning and design of Buckeye Town Lake-a 1,000-acre recreational facility just south of downtown that will anchor development in that area. In fact, town officials have committed to building a three-story office/retail building in the heart of the downtown district, and there is also a proposal to renovate a local cotton gin into a combined park and historical center-moves they hope will kick-start additional development.

In addition, the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority has awarded Buckeye a $401,000 grant for renovation of softball, soccer and football fields, and basketball courts at Earl Edgar Recreational Complex, already the site of the Craig Counsell Diamondbacks Field. And the town has annexed 132 square miles of federal Bureau of Land Management land in the southern portion of the town to make sure the beautiful Sonoran Monument desert region is protected for wildlife and for walking trails and other recreational uses.

While people are now beginning to notice what's happening in Buckeye and what lies ahead, its residents haven't lost sight of the past. Two professional rodeos remain on the schedule at Helzapoppin' Rodeo Grounds downtown each year, and several parades and special events scattered throughout the year maintain Buckeye's small-town feel.


Bob Bushner is Public Information Officer for the Town of Buckeye.